Sunday, February 11, 2007

40 year Flashback: Fantastic is launched

Following the successes of Wham! (1964) and Smash! (1966) Odhams were keen to expand their line of weekly "Power Comics" in 1967. In January they launched Pow! with Spider-Man as the lead strip, and a month later saw the arrival of a comic that was almost entirely Marvel reprint: Fantastic.

Fantastic No.1, which launched on Saturday February 11th 1967, had a different format to its three predecessors. Slightly smaller in size and on better paper, it featured a whopping 40 pages and a higher cover price (9d, compared to Smash's 7d for 28 pages). This made it three times more expensive than the 3d cover price of Thomson's perennial Beano and Dandy. Could it sustain a profit in the increasingly-crowded market of sixties comics? Sadly not for long, but it did gain a faithful following and served as a good introduction to Marvel comics characters.

The contents of the first year featured a set line up of Thor, X-Men, and Iron Man reprints, starting from their first appearances. As the X-Men stories themselves ran to 20 pages or more, each story was edited to run over two weeks. The same applied to the other strips depending on space. (This format set the template for US reprints in UK comics. It was later used by the early Marvel UK weeklies throughout the 1970s. Today the closest equivalent to Fantastic would be Panini's Marvel Legends monthly, which by coincidence even uses an almost identical line up: Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America, with complete unedited stories.)

The fourth strip in Fantastic was brand-new: The Missing Link. This Hulk-like creature was discovered in the African jungle by big-game hunter "Bull" Benson, brought back to England, and subsequently went on a rampage in central London, to be calmed only by beautiful sixties dolly-bird Lita Munro. All very King Kong obviously, but Luis Bermejo's artwork made the strip something special.

Perhaps the editor of Fantastic (Alf Wallace, pictured) felt the Link had limited possibilities story-wise, or perhaps the rumour that Marvel complained about the creature's similarity to the Hulk was true, but whatever the reason a change came about with issue 8. Resting at a secret research station, The Link was evolved by radiation into apparently a normal 20th Century man. Yet he still possessed the Link's strength, albeit now coupled with above-normal intelligence and the ability to fly. After a series of misadventures with the authorities this "man of the future" adopted the identity of "John Foster" and a dual existence as superhero Johnny Future, complete with costume.

Bermejo continued as artist throughout the run of the strip, which ended with issue No.51 with an extra-length 7 page story. Overall it was a very entertaining series and one which deserves reprinting. More on the strip can be read at this link.

Fantastic had some unique free gifts. Issue one gave away a soft plastic pendant (with cut-out pictures to slide inside) whilst issue two presented free stick-on scars. (Quite a gory gift for the period, but we wore them at school anyway!) Issue 53 had a "free Apollo Space Craft" in the form of a flat cardboard kit that when assembled showed details of the Apollo space capsule under a series of tabbed layers.

Another thing Fantastic is remembered for are the weekly superhero pin-ups that appeared on the back cover. Most of these were existing Marvel images, but some were drawn by Barry Smith and Steve Parkhouse right at the start of their careers. The drawings were not much better than fan-art but (as the Balder image shown here demonstrates) Smith's potential was beginning to surface.

Eight weeks after Fantastic appeared, Odhams launched a companion comic, Terrific. This actually presented a bit of a problem for the editors. In The Avengers strip in Terrific, Iron Man was wearing his red and gold armour, but he was still wearing his original clunky gold suit in the earlier Iron Man strips running in Fantastic. Obviously editors "Alf and Bart" felt this would confuse readers so they brought the story of Iron Man's new armour forward, and in the classic stories that followed they had his gold armour redrawn to look like the newer design. Unfortunately with awkward looking results, illustrated by the scan shown here comparing an original Tales of Suspense cover to a redrawn Fantastic cover.

With the "Power Comics" now at five titles, it proved to be too many comics for most readers to afford. Terrific folded after 43 issues, and with issue 52 Fantastic and Terrific became a merged title, featuring Thor, X-Men, The Avengers and Doctor Strange. As Wham! had merged into Pow! only a couple of weeks earlier, the writing was on the wall for the Power Comics. A desperate attempt to lure football fans was attempted with a football booklet pull-out but this was an unharmonious addition to a superhero comic and must have cost them even more readers. (Me for one!)

With the publishing giant IPC looming on the horizon like Galactus waiting to eat a planet, Odhams were doomed. All of Odhams remaining comics merged into one publication, giving it the awkward title Smash! and Pow! Incorporating Fantastic.

In the final issue of Fantastic the editors were cheerfully fatalistic: "It all has to come to an end SOME time! That's life!" Although one can't help thinking they expected it to last more than 89 issues! Still, it was a good run compared to some comics, and even today Fantastic is still highly regarded by fans of sixties comics.

Yes, Batman and Superman appeared in British black and white versions of their own comics in the 1950s. During the sixties Batman newspaper strips appeared on the cover of Smash! and in 1969/70 there was a monthly 40 page black and white comic called SUPER DC which reprinted Batman, Superman, Jimmy Olsen, Superboy and Lois Lane strips.

Yes it's the same artist. He started out drawing pin-ups for Fantastic, then did a bit of work for Marvel on the original X-Men and an issue of Daredevil etc then moved onto Conan. His work improved immensely from then on.

Interesting find Richard! Thanks for that. Curious that the person who's displaying the art refers to The Missing Link as the Hulk. Whilst there was definitely a similarity I don't think Odhams intended it to be the same character!

At last!, some decent coverage and appreciation of the best line of British comics that ever existed...Power comics...'natch.I have been searching for ages for stuff about them and there doesn't seem to be one specific web-site devoted to them.I have been a fan of them since childhood and have a complete collection of them all. I have been thinking of creating a web-site myself...along the lines of the Marvel Silver Age Covers website, with scans of the covers on it. I wonder if there would be a problem from a copywrite point of view with something like this? It would be for educational and informative purposes only and as a tribute to these iconic comics.I think they deserve something like this..what do you think? Any advice would be very welcome.

Sorry for the delay in publishing your comment, as I've been away for the weekend. Regarding copyright, I would imagine cover scans are okay as long as they're not high resolution, although in truth any publishing of artwork is subject to copyright. I don't think you'd be hassled though.

I started collecting the Fantastic comic when it was first released, and religiously followed the stories every week, right up to issue 89. I was talking to my wife about comics and how our children never really got into them, when I remembered my old ones, looked in a box I'd been carrying around with me for years, and got them out, still in pretty good order.Thought we'd look them up on the web to see if anyone else remembered them, and found your site. Could anyone tell me what value could be placed on the complete collection.

It's great to know that there are still fans of the Power Comics out there! I'm trying to get a fanzine going dedicated to Fantastic and Terrific (which are the ones I read). Anyone who would like a free sample copy can contact me on wobafgkmrns60137@yahoo.com. I'm writing to Marvel to clear any copyright issues so hope to have copies available by end November.

In 1963, Fleetway Productions had merged with George Newnes Publishers and Odhams Press, to form IPC. Thus in 1967/68 Odhams was already part of IPC, and in fact had been throughout the period in which the Power Comics were published. Widely thought of today as a takeover that happened in 1969, the merger had in fact happened 6 years earlier, and was not the cause of the cancellation of Fantasic (or even of Smash, the last surviving Power Comic).

Next event, ICE2017, on September 9th...

About this blog:

Established in 2006, BLIMEY! is a blog that looks back at classic British comics and promotes current and upcoming titles. Images are copyright their respective publishers and are only used here for review purposes.

The images of comics on my blog are ones I've spent time scanning from my own personal comics collection or, in the case of some current issues, are promotional images sent to me by the publishers. On the rare occasion when I might use an image from another site I always credit the source. If you take images I've scanned to use on your own blog/site it's good manners to show the same courtesy.

No links to sites that indulge in wholesale piracy of comics are tolerated here. If you're a genuine comics fan, support the industry by buying the comics.

About Me

I work as a professional humour comics artist and writer and have been freelancing full time since 1984, creating many characters such as TOM THUG, PETE AND HIS PIMPLE, COMBAT COLIN, BRICKMAN, ROBO-CAPERS, DEREK THE TROLL, SUBURBAN SATANISTS and others.
I've freelanced for IPC, Marvel Comics, Egmont, Panini,D.C. Thomson, and many others, covering the comics field from originated characters to licensed properties, pre-school to adult on comics such as BUSTER, OINK!, BEANO, DANDY, TRANSFORMERS, SONIC THE COMIC, TOXIC, VIZ, CiTV TELLYTOTS, LEGO ADVENTURES, HERMAN HEDNING, SWEET FA, ACTION FORCE, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, RAMPAGE, LUCKY BAG COMIC, SWIFTSURE, WARLOCK, WHITE DWARF, ACES WEEKLY, THE DAREDEVILS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL, and many more.
My recent comics work has included:'Team Toxic' for Egmont's TOXIC magazine'Postman Prat', 'Kid Cops' and 'The Dark Newt' for THE DANDY'Rasher', 'Pup Parade', 'Lord Snooty' and 'Ivy the Terrible' for THE BEANO.
'The Daft Dimension' for DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE.